On the Idea of Uniqueness

Archivists have generally described the records in their care as unique. While this description seems straightforward and absolute, it has in fact been used to denote several different attributes of archives: the uniqueness of records; the uniqueness of information in records; the uniqueness of the processes which produce records; and the uniqueness of the aggregations of documents into files. This essay explores how the idea of uniqueness has evolved, especially in relation to the changing technologies of recordmaking, and it speculates on the future usefulness of the idea for archival theory and practice.